A Nano-Rattle SnO@carbon Composite Anode Material for High-Energy Li-ion Batteries by Melt Diffusion Impregnation.

The huge volume expansion in Sn-based alloy anode materials (up to 360%) leads to a dramatic mechanical stress and breaking of particles, resulting in the loss of conductivity and thereby capacity fading. To overcome this issue, SnO@C nano-rattle composites based on <10 nm SnO nanoparticles in and on porous amorphous carbon spheres were synthesized using a silica template and tin melting diffusion method. Such SnO@C nano-rattle composite electrodes provided two electrochemical processes: a partially reversible process of the SnO reduction to metallic Sn at 0.

Characteristics and properties of nano-LiCoO synthesized by pre-organized single source precursors: Li-ion diffusivity, electrochemistry and biological assessment.

Background: LiCoO is one of the most used cathode materials in Li-ion batteries. Its conventional synthesis requires high temperature (>800 °C) and long heating time (>24 h) to obtain the micronscale rhombohedral layered high-temperature phase of LiCoO (HT-LCO). Nanoscale HT-LCO is of interest to improve the battery performance as the lithium (Li) ion pathway is expected to be shorter in nanoparticles as compared to micron sized ones.

Nanomaterials Meet Li-ion Batteries.

Li-ion batteries are used in many applications in everyday life: cell phones, laser pointers, laptops, cordless drillers or saws, bikes and even cars. Yet, there is room for improvement in order to make the batteries smaller and last longer. The Fromm group contributes to this research focusing mainly on nanoscale lithium ion cathode materials.

Layer-by-layer grown scalable redox-active ruthenium-based molecular multilayer thin films for electrochemical applications and beyond.

Here we report the first study on the electrochemical energy storage application of a surface-immobilized ruthenium complex multilayer thin film with anion storage capability. We employed a novel dinuclear ruthenium complex with tetrapodal anchoring groups to build well-ordered redox-active multilayer coatings on an indium tin oxide (ITO) surface using a layer-by-layer self-assembly process. Cyclic voltammetry (CV), UV-Visible (UV-Vis) and Raman spectroscopy showed a linear increase of peak current, absorbance and Raman intensities, respectively with the number of layers.